


family ties

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 05:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16759081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: River's parents show up for her graduation, and conversations are had about who she is to them.





	family ties

River wasn’t exactly expecting her parents to show up at her graduation from Luna University, and didn’t know how to feel when they did. The Doctor was there, of course, with a grin so bright it could have lit up the entire galaxy, babbling on about family reunions and important moments and _we’re all so proud of you, River!_ His excitement made her more than certain that this had not, in fact, been her parents’ idea, a hypothesis that was strengthened by the fact that Amy and Rory looked so completely out of place.

Nearly all of River’s classmates had relatives there, mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles with a clear family resemblance linking them together. River had looked like her parents, once, when she was a little girl, but now she had curly space hair that belonged to no one and eyes that didn’t come from anywhere. This face was gorgeous, yes, but it didn’t have anything that might link her to the Ponds.

“So you’re River’s…friend?” said one of River’s classmates, eyes darting between River and Amy.

There was a strained silence. Then Amy said, “I’m going to go get, ah, get some punch,” and clapped River awkwardly on the shoulder, hurrying over to the refreshments. “Oi, Doctor, don’t eat _all_ the snacks—”

River slipped out of the auditorium when no one was looking.

* * *

The thing was, River remembered loving Amy. They hadn’t let her keep anything that wasn’t a picture of herself, but the picture of Amy had been allowed to stay. _We wouldn’t have had to take you from your mummy if not for the Doctor,_ they’d said. _It’s the Doctor’s fault you’re not with her. She loves you and misses you and isn’t it evil of him to make us take you away?_ And because Amy was the one thing that Melody was allowed to love without recrimination, Melody had loved Amy _so_ much. She’d had long daydreams about how one day, the Doctor would be dead, and they’d let her go home. One day, she’d kill the Doctor like they all wanted, and then she would go home to Mummy, and Mummy would be so _happy,_ so proud to have such a good little girl as a daughter.

River leaned against the side of the seedy little Luna bar and took a long swig from the flask she’d brought along with her. Her throat burned.

“Doctor Song?”

River turned. “I’ve a bachelor’s degree in Archaeology, Rory,” she said flatly. “I’m nowhere near a doctorate.”

“You’ve got time,” said Rory, “and I’d appreciate it if you could call me Dad. Fatherly respect,” he added, affecting a gruff voice, and grinned a little nervously.

Something ugly twisted in River’s chest at the lightness of his smile. “It’s not a fucking joke to me, _Rory,”_ she said sharply.

Rory blinked. “Have we—missed something?” he said tentatively. “Because we thought it’d be nice, us showing up and seeing you graduate. And then they called your name and you didn’t come up, and Amy even bought a little camera and everything—River, this is, I know it’s not _regular,_ our family thing, but I don’t want it to be a joke to me either. You’re the only—” He swallowed. “The only daughter I’ve got.”

It was a hell of a lot harder to be madder at Rory than Amy. Rory wore his heart on his sleeve; Rory was honest in a way Amy wasn’t. Amy had been honest with Mels, in a best-friend sort of way, but that was different than Rory being honest with his kid. “You’re better at this than you think,” said River grudgingly.

“You shouldn’t be drinking,” Rory added reprovingly. “You’re barely out of college.”

River snort-laughed, then pressed her hand to her mouth, frustrated. She wanted to hold onto that fierce, bitter hurt she’d felt during graduation. “You don’t…” She trailed off, sighed, then finished. “You don’t mind if I call you Dad?”

“You’re my kid,” said Rory. “I think it’d be pretty weird if you didn’t.” He leaned against the wall next to her, their shoulders touching. “So why’d you skip out on graduation?”

“Someone wanted to know if Amy was my friend,” said River.

“Huh,” said Rory. Then, “Well, is she?”

“She’s my mum,” said River. Her voice came out sounding a little like Melody—a small, scared girl in a spacesuit.

“She can be both, you know,” said Rory carefully, the same voice River had heard him use with Amy when he thought the situation might go south. “She doesn’t have to be just—one or the other.”

“She’s my mum _first,_ ” said River, unable to look at Rory. It was hard to be this honest. “Before anything else. I don’t know if the same holds true for her.”

There was a long silence, long enough that River found herself regretting her honesty. Then Rory said, “You know we love you, all right? You’re clever and brave and just as mad as your mum. But she hasn’t had nearly as much time as you to adjust to this—”

“Neither have you, and you’re still doing better than she is—”

“She lost her baby—”

 _“I’m_ her baby!” River shouted. “And you never _looked_ for me! The Doctor didn’t look, and Amy didn’t look, and you didn’t look, and now I’m someone else and you don’t _want_ me, you want the little girl in the spacesuit, you—”

“Blimey, Melody,” said Rory softly. “You’re quite different this young.”

River stopped. She thought there might be tears in her eyes, which was fucking humiliating, but she’d deal with that later. Without a word, she rested her cheek against Rory’s shoulder—and she knew that wasn’t something River Song would do, but then she wasn’t River Song quite yet. So it was fine, and she was allowed.

Rory carded his fingers through her hair, the curls catching and bouncing. _Space hair,_ the Doctor always called it. “I don’t know if I’m the best at this,” he said carefully. “I was really angry when they took you. I kept it together for Amy’s sake, but I just kept thinking—that’s my baby, you know? My little girl got swept up and away and spent way too much time around people who hurt her.” He kept on stroking her hair. “And I won’t lie, Mels, I’d rather have had you here with us, but that’s just because I hate thinking about you all alone in that horrible little attic room. You’re still my kid.”

“Are you sure?” said River.

“Took me a while to figure it out, but yeah,” said her dad. She could hear the sad little smile in his voice. “It’s a little easier when—I mean, me and Doctor Song, we weren’t really that close. She was always off giggling with Amy or flirting with the Doctor, you know? But we did talk a few times, and she was always honest with me, and I always felt like—like I knew her. Like she trusted me. Couldn’t ever figure out what I’d done to earn that till…” He trailed off.

River closed her eyes. She didn’t feel entirely comforted, but something restless and hurting in her had settled down a bit. “You’ve had as much time as her to adjust to it,” she mumbled. “And you’re doing…not terribly.”

“I’m flattered,” said Rory, mouth twitching.

“No, I just mean—”

“River, I don’t know what’s going on in your mum’s head,” said Rory patiently. “It’d make for a hell of an easier marriage if I did. If you want to know why she’s having trouble with this whole thing, you’re going to have to talk to her about it.”

River felt her smile dissipate. “What if I don’t want to?”

“Then that’s your choice,” said Rory. “Mind you, it’s not a great one, and it definitely isn’t dad-sanctioned, but it’s still your choice to make.”

* * *

River and Rory got back in time for the after-party. She had to dodge quite a few questions from her classmates, all of whom were _dying_ to know why she’d skipped the commencement. Rory steered her through the crowd, coming up with quick one-word answers to various inquiries, and finally stopped them in front of the punch bowl, where Amy and the Doctor were sitting in silence.

That was unusual. Usually Amy and the Doctor were all talk. But the Doctor looked miserable, and Amy was sipping punch through a silly straw, her expression unreadable.

“Found our kid loitering outside a bar,” Rory informed Amy. “S’pose she gets that from you. You always hit up pubs when you’re sad. Never even buy anything, just lurk outside and brood.”

Amy didn’t answer. She just got up, put the punch down, said, “I’ll be in the Tardis,” and left, not looking back.

“Thought it’d be fun,” the Doctor mumbled to his shoes. “Me and the Ponds, seeing River graduate. Thought Amy’d like seeing her daughter all—” He cut himself off with a long swig from the cup of punch Amy had left.

“Well, the punch is probably spiked,” said Rory uncomfortably. “Um, should I—I’ll go check on Amy, then?”

“No, I’ll—I’ll do it,” said River suddenly, surprising absolutely all of them.

“You sure?” asked Rory, looking a little worried.

River very much wasn’t. “Absolutely,” she said brightly. She dropped a kiss to the Doctor’s lips (he tilted his head up, eyes soft and sad as she pulled away), clapped Rory’s shoulder, and headed in the direction of the Tardis.

* * *

River still remembered meeting Amy for the first time—well, the first time in Amy’s eyes, at least. _Mum,_ she’d thought, looking at the little redheaded girl, feeling this frustrated mix of love and confusion. How could it be her mum when her mum was just as tiny as she was? It had taken River a while to sort her feelings out, but she still had, in the end. She’d had that time.

Amy hadn’t. She’d had time with Mels, and time with River, but not a second of it had been spent _knowing._ Rory had always been better at knowing his heart; maybe River had inherited some of that from him.

Really, what it came down to was that Melody Pond was so, so afraid that her mum wouldn’t love her. Not _her._ Amy wanted her baby back, not some too-old college graduate with space hair who still remembered how to shoot a gun without missing. They’d taught her quite a lot in the handful of years they’d had her.

River wavered, resting her hand on the Tardis doors, and then she opened them, stepping inside.

Amy was leaning against the console, head tilted upwards. She didn’t move as River stepped in. “I bought a camera,” she said to the ceiling. “Little disposable thing. Thought I’d take it back to Leadworth, develop the photos, tell everyone I could that that was my baby, you know? My Melody. Only then she runs off and she’s not there and—and I don’t know, I don’t know if I can _do_ this, Doctor. It hurts too much. I loved that baby from the second I knew her and now it’s not—it’s not as _easy,_ but it’s _there,_ but she’s _River._ River’s not the sort of person who wants a mum. I don’t know how to be River’s mum.”

River didn’t entirely know how to process all that, or what to say in return. She supposed Doctor River Song would be a bit better at coming up with something gentle and reassuring, but all that came out of her own mouth was, “You know, I never asked to be River? You all say that’s what I go by, which means I’ll probably have to go by it later, but—I’m Melody, Mum. That’s the name you gave me.”

Amy kept her head tilted up. “Hasn’t anyone ever taught you,” she said, voice wobbling, “not to listen in on private conversations?”

“Well, not really,” said River, stepping up next to Amy and looking up at the ceiling herself. “Never had a proper mum before.”

Amy sniffled. “It’s really weird,” she said. “This whole situation, it’s, it’s just—I don’t know how to handle any of it.”

River hesitated, looking back down at Amy. Then she said, “I always wanted to come home to you, you know. When all this was over, I thought _I’ll kill the Doctor—”_ (Amy flinched) _“—and then I’ll come home to Mum and it’ll all be all right.”_

“They hurt my baby,” said Amy. She turned to look at River, eyes glittering with tears. “My little girl.”

“I’m not a baby,” said River quietly. “I’m never going to be a little girl again.”

Amy sniffled again, wiping roughly at her face. “I know,” she said. “I know. I do. It’s just hard to—it’s just _hard,_ ” and then she stopped talking, very clearly doing her best not to cry.

River nodded. She considered just walking out of the Tardis and getting really, properly drunk, or starting a bar brawl, or shagging someone she didn’t know. Something that her half-imagined mother wouldn’t approve of. Something that Amy Pond would probably do herself.

* * *

River spent the night on the Tardis. Not in the Doctor’s room—they weren’t quite _there_ yet, and she didn’t feel like spending the night with him anyway—but the Tardis had a room of its own for her, all deep blue and gold, with too-large sleep shirts in the wardrobe. The bed was soft; it felt like she was enveloped in a cloud. She needed that, after the day she’d had.

Someone knocked on the door.

River sighed. “Come in,” she called, not bothering to pull herself up and out of the blankets.

Amy opened the door. River blinked tiredly at her, but didn’t move. “Hey,” she said. “Can I—I mean, do you mind if I’m in here for a bit?”

“No, I don’t,” said River, not quite sure what to say besides that. There wasn’t exactly a manual for this sort of thing.

Amy stepped inside, shutting the door behind her. “It’s a bit weird,” she said, smiling a little sadly. “Seeing you this young. All my memories of you are you jumping out of spaceships and shooting aliens and doing all sorts of Indiana Jones things.”

“Well, I _am_ an archaeologist,” said River, but quipping didn’t really work when she felt this kind of tired.

Amy sat down on the other side of the bed, shifting until she was sitting very nearly next to River. “The Doctor says you have space hair,” she said. “I think your hair’s the same color as Rory’s, in this light. You’ve got his nose, but I think your eyes are a bit like mine.”

River rolled over onto her back, looking up at Amy. She didn’t know what to say to that. She was almost afraid that if she said anything, the moment would dissipate.

“It’s hard,” said Amy. “It is. But you’re my baby.” She gave River a small, watery smile. “I missed some bits, I know, but that doesn’t change—”

River reached out and took Amy’s hand in hers, linking their fingers. Amy’s hand was just a bit smaller than hers. “Mum, can you stay here?” she asked, and she heard it in her voice: she sounded _just_ like Melody.

Amy let go of River’s hand and lay down on top of the covers, both of them shoulder to shoulder. “Every part of this hurts,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to fix any of this.”

“Maybe we don’t,” said River tentatively. “Maybe we just—make do with what we have.”

“Loving you is not _making do,_ Melody,” said Amy fiercely. “All right?”

River swallowed, hard.

“Melody?”

“I love you too, Mum,” said River softly.

**Author's Note:**

> never expected to write a dw fanfiction again, let alone a non-shippy one, but! i love river song with all my heart, and the ponds are remarkably wonderful people. so i'm not too surprised that my return to this fandom is marked by a fic about them.


End file.
